Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Pine Bend Ski Area stood on Highway 55 near Hastings in Dakota County, on bluffs above the Mississippi River at Pine Bend. Oscar and Gabrielle Cyr cleared ravines in the bluffs to make the slopes.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTimeline
6 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Pine Bend Ski Area, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Pine Bend Ski Area
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 12 mi away · MinnesotaA small Ramsey County ski hill in Battle Creek Park in St. Paul, with rope tows, night lighting and snowmaking in the late 1970s.
- Opened 1936 · 22.1 mi away · MinnesotaA private, member-run ski hill south of Shady Oak Lake near Hopkins, skied from 1936 and last mentioned in 1965.
- Opened 1963 · 23.1 mi away · MinnesotaA rope-tow ski and golf park in Eden Prairie, near Minneapolis, that opened in 1963 and was last mentioned in 1979.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Pine Bend Ski Area stood on Highway 55 near Hastings in Dakota County, on bluffs above the Mississippi River at Pine Bend. Oscar and Gabrielle Cyr cleared ravines in the bluffs to make the slopes. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project dates the opening to 1952; the Cyrs' daughter, recalling it in 2000, put it in 1954, shortly after Buck Hill opened.1,2,3
In 1958 it ran four rope tows. By the 1965–66 season, with Oscar Cyr as owner and operator, it had three rope tows, ten runs, snowmaking, three lighted runs and a 270-foot vertical drop, and had just added a novice slope. A 1971 statewide guide listed two Poma lifts, six rope tows, nine runs and 250 feet of vertical; the project itself gives 258 feet. The area closed in 1972, and a 1982 newspaper review of the ski season named it among Minnesota areas that had closed in past years.1,2,3,4,5
Timeline
- 1952Opening year given by the Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project1
- 1954Opening year recalled by the founders' daughter in 20002
- 1958Four rope tows in operation1
- 1965Three rope tows, ten runs, snowmaking and lights; new novice slope added3
- 1971Guide lists two Poma lifts, six rope tows and nine runs4
- 1972Pine Bend Ski Area closes1,2
Sources for this history (5)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Pine Bend Ski Area — Minnesota
- 2Star Tribune · 'Grand dame of skiing' continued to be athletic, even after surgery
- 3The Minneapolis Star · Ski Area: Pine Bend (seventh of a series)
- 4Post-Bulletin · Skiing Variety Offered in Minnesota — Post-Bulletin (Rochester), November 12, 1971, p. 14 (clipping hosted by MWLSAP)
- 5Star Tribune · Skiing (season review)
Photos
No photographs of Pine Bend Ski Area we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Pine Bend Ski Area, in their own words.
Facts
Location
44.7649° N · 93.0206° W · Minnesota
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1952–1972
Closed after the 1972 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 3all 3, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain